Santa Cruz bliss
Santa Cruz is great; one of the few spots on the Peninsula coast where the summer fog behaves in a somewhat predictable pattern - present in early morning, burning off after noon. Being in Santa Cruz is being on vacation, hereby respecting the California beach life stereotypes (how many towns feature a huge statue depicting a surfer dude?).
Santa Cruz is volleyball on the beach and enjoying a bbq on the same beach afterwards; it’s proud of hosting a crowd of unusual characters and weirdos - a blend of metropolitan San Francisco and coastal Southern California. If there wouldn’t be an over-an-hour commute to Silicon Valley, I wouldn’t mind living here.
And more importantly, it hosts some of the greatest singletrack around - see the pic of Zane Gray, one of my favorite trails in the Wilder Ranch park. On the nearby UCSC campus are numerous hidden gems as well; yesterday I singlespeeded down ‘Magic Carpet’ - going down this trail is very much like tree skiing in Heavenly.
